The reasons for the waxing and waning of these industries remain elusive. But Dr Jacobs and colleagues rule out environmental factors as being the main driving force for the emergence of these two periods of innovation.

“We see no consistent pattern between the timing of these industries and major climatic changes although local conditions probably influenced where people preferred to live,” Dr Jacobs said.

“It is also possible that the Still Bay and Howieson’s Poort innovations were the catalyst for the population expansions within and out of Africa – or that demographic events were the trigger for the advanced stone-age technologies.

“What we need now to answer these lingering questions are much tighter timeframes for human expansions and migrations, climatic changes, and other innovative archaeological industries in Africa,”, Dr Jacobs said.

The Swiderian culture, also published in English literature as Sviderian and Swederian, is the name of Final Palaeolithic cultural complexes in Poland and the surrounding areas. The type-site is Świdry Wielkie, in Otwock. The Swiderian is recognized as a distinctive culture that developed on the sand dunes left behind by the retreating glaciers.

Rimantiene (1996) considered the relationship between Swiderian and Solutrean "outstanding, though also indirect", in contrast with the Bromme-Ahrensburg complex (Lyngby culture), for which she introduced the term "Baltic Magdalenian" for generalizing all other North European Late Paleolithic culture groups that have a common origin in Aurignacian.[1]

Latvia's most ancient inhabitants were large in size, had large oblong skulls, broad high faces and protruding noses. Similar Mesolithic populations were found 8130 - 8000 BC in the Middle Dnieper River and later also in Scandinavia. During the following Neolithic period, similar anthropological types populated the Upper Volga, the Upper Oka, and were found in the Dnieper / Donetz culture of the Ukraine.

Denisova writes that "The morphological type described here is quite unique and is easily distinguished from any other type.... but in Latvia, this complex of anthropological characteristics remained characteristic in other times, too." To put it differently, this particular type appeared to be at home in the Baltic and also remained there over time. Anthropologically similar peoples also inhabited Normandy and the Middle European lowlands in the Mesolithic period.

Denisova writes: "The most ancient similar morphological form was prevalent among inhabitants of France's Madlein [Magdalenian] culture." So, the Latvians appear to be the descendants of the cave painters of Lascaux and of the hunters of the German Ahrensburgian Culture (near Hamburg).

The small expansion rates or constant population sizes inferred for herders and hunter-gatherers may thus result from constraints linked to nomadism. However, autosomal data revealed contraction events for two sedentary populations in Eurasia, which may be caused by founder effects.

Finally, the inferred expansions likely predated the emergence of agriculture and herding. This suggests that human populations could have started to expand in Paleolithic times, and that strong Paleolithic expansions in some populations may have ultimately favored their shift towards agriculture during the Neolithic.

A ground-breaking new study on DNA recovered from a fossil of one of the earliest known Europeans - a man who lived 36,000 years ago in Kostenki, western Russia - has shown that the earliest European humans' genetic ancestry survived the Last Glacial Maximum: the peak point of the last ice age.

The study also uncovers a more accurate timescale for when humans and Neanderthals interbred, and finds evidence for an early contact between the European hunter-gatherers and those who would later develop agriculture and disperse into Europe about 8,000 years ago, transforming the European gene pool.

A multi-purpose bone tool dating from the Neanderthal era has been discovered by researchers, throwing into question our current understanding of the evolution of human behavior. It was found at an archaeological site in France.

The tool in question was uncovered in June 2014 during the annual digs at the Grotte du Bison at Arcy-sur-Cure in Burgundy, France. Extremely well preserved, the tool comes from the left femur of an adult reindeer and its age is estimated between 55,000 and 60,000 years ago.

Percussion marks suggest the use of the bone fragment for carved sharpening the cutting edges of stone tools. Finally, chipping and a significant polish show the use of the bone as a scraper.

Archaeologists excavating a cave in the Republic of Georgia have found the oldest known fibers used by human beings. They’re flax fibers and they’re 34,000 years old. (...)

An abundance of wild flax grew in the area around the cave, so would have been able to fashion any number of goods. Some of the fibers found were twisted together, suggest they were used as string or rope. Some of them were even dyed.

Bar-Yosef and his team used radiocarbon dating to date the layers of the cave as they dug the site, revealing the age of the clay samples in which the fibers were found. Flax fibers were also found in the layers that dated to about 21,000 and 13,000 years ago.

So people in that cave were making linen for tens of thousands of years, at least.